The Farm

His chores could wait. They’d be there when he got back. A couple of hours made no difference. Max looked over the edge of the rocky ledge he was lying on. The dirt road below was mostly quiet. His clothes were covered in orange red dust, which would earn him a choice word or two. Movement at the bottom of the road pulled his attention. He had prey in his sights. He moved with a practiced care. Slowly and silently like his dad did while hunting.

One wrong move and you could spook your game and it was gone. It was always faster than you, so you had to be smarter. Smarter and quieter. He edged closer to the lip of the ledge on his belly. Pulling back out of sight he pulled his slingshot from his back pocket. He looked around him and picked up a small rose quartz pebble. He placed it in the pouch and pulled it back. He waited.

He waited as his target stumbled and dragged its feet closer. Easy prey, Max thought. He heard nothing else, saw nothing but his target. It stopped at the sign to the farm. Resting. He calmed his mind and loosed the pebble.

It hit the stranger in the shoulder and the man spun around cursing. He glared up toward the ledge. Max ducked out of sight. He kept his hand to his mouth to smother his laughter. He squinted in the glare, the man would be blinded too. Max stole a glaze. The man wavered, took another step and fell. The kind of fall that wasn’t pretending. The kind of fall that happened when a boxer was hit square in the mouth. Max sat up. The road was silent again.

That was unexpected. The drunk laborers usually swear at him. Or throw something at him. Some of them had wicked aim from scaring off baboons or something. Nothing came, he looked over the ledge and saw the man lying in the dust. The dust hung in the air around him.

Move.

Max watched him. He didn’t hit him that hard. He’d aimed for the shoulder. Maybe he hit him in the neck or the head.

“Shit,” said Max.

His dad always said never aim for the head.

“You could do a lot of damage. Possibly kill them.”

Max heard those words again in his head as he looked at the unmoving body of the man on the road.

“Hey!” he said.

The was no answer. His blood started to pound in his ears, like the time he almost set the kitchen on fire. The hiding he got that day was memorable.

“Stop pretending!”

He took another stone and placed it in his pouch and shot it at the man’s leg. He didn’t even twitch. He stood up and shouted down at the man.

“Hey!”, said Max at the man, “Stop pretending, get up man! I didn’t hit you that hard.”

Nothing still.

“Shit, shit,shit,” 

He jumped up from his hiding spot and ran down the hill toward the man. The man had fallen a step from their sign. Maybe he wanted to come inside. To ask for work, or maybe to steal from them. Maybe Max was a hero, maybe he saved his dad and sister. Max stumbled as he rushed down, almost turning his ankle on a loose rock. He ran on. Or maybe he just hurt some random dude by accident. Yes! It was an accident - his dad would believe that.

No he wouldn’t, said that voice in his head that Max hated.

The one that sounded like his mother. Whenever he did something fun, that turned out stupid, that voice was there telling him that he knew better. The moment he heard that voice he knew he’d be in deep shit.

He reached the man lying in the dust, pulling up a few paces short. The dust from his steps hung in the still air, orange gray clouds with nowhere to go. He kicked at them for the good it did the situation in front of him. The man was dirty, unwashed and his hair was matted. Gross. He felt sweat trickle down his neck. The sun was climbing and it was going to start cooking proper. His mouth was dry. He couldn’t leave this guy out here. He’d cook alive.